This book is devoted to the analysis of causal inference which is one of the most difficult tasks in data analysis: when two phenomena are observed to be related, it is often difficult to decide whether one of them causally influences the other one, or whether these two phenomena have a common cause. This analysis is the main focus of this volume. To get a good understanding of the causal inference, it is important to have models of economic phenomena which are as accurate as possible. Because of this need, this volume also contains papers that use non-traditional economic models, such as fuzzy models and models obtained by using neural networks and data mining techniques. It also contains papers that apply different econometric models to analyze real-life economic dependencies.

This book promotes and describes the application of objective and effective decision making in asset management based on mathematical models and practical techniques that can be easily implemented in organizations. This comprehensive and timely publication will be an essential reference source, building on available literature in the field of asset management while laying the groundwork for further research breakthroughs in this field. The text provides the resources necessary for managers, technology developers, scientists and engineers to adopt and implement better decision making based on models and techniques that contribute to recognizing risks and uncertainties and, in general terms, to the important role of asset management to increase competitiveness in organizations.

This text provides the reader with a general and widely-applicable problem solving strategy for use in quality improvement. It covers a variety of statistical and "non-statistical" problem-solving tools, and discusses techniques that are useful when problems are solved by groups or teams of people. It also shows how the success of problem solving is influenced by the style of management and the type of management-employee interaction.

This book provides a comprehensive up-to-date presentation of some of the classical areas of reliability, based on a more advanced probabilistic framework using the modern theory of stochastic processes. This framework allows analysts to formulate general failure models, establish formulae for computing various performance measures, as well as determine how to identify optimal replacement policies in complex situations. In this second edition of the book, two major topics have been added to the original version: copula models which are used to study the effect of structural dependencies on the system reliability; and maintenance optimization which highlights delay time models under safety constraints. Terje Aven is Professor of Reliability and Risk Analysis at University of Stavanger, Norway. Uwe Jensen is working as a Professor at the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. Review of first edition: "This is an excellent book on mathematical, statistical and stochastic models in reliability. The authors have done an excellent job of unifying some of the stochastic models in reliability. The book is a good reference book but may not be suitable as a textbook for students in professional fields such as engineering. This book may be used for graduate level seminar courses for students who have had at least the first course in stochastic processes and some knowledge of reliability mathematics. It should be a good reference book for researchers in reliability mathematics." --Mathematical Reviews (2000)

Outlines the correct procedures for doing FMEAs and how to successfully apply them in design, development, manufacturing, and service applications There are a myriad of quality and reliability tools available to corporations worldwide, but the one that shows up consistently in company after company is Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Effective FMEAs takes the best practices from hundreds of companies and thousands of FMEA applications and presents streamlined procedures for veteran FMEA practitioners, novices, and everyone in between. Written from an applications viewpoint with many examples, detailed case studies, study problems, and tips included the book covers the most common types of FMEAs, including System FMEAs, Design FMEAs, Process FMEAs, Maintenance FMEAs, Software FMEAs, and others. It also presents chapters on Fault Tree Analysis, Design Review Based on Failure Mode (DRBFM), Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), Hazard Analysis, and FMECA (which adds criticality analysis to FMEA). With extensive study problems and a companion Solutions Manual, this book is an ideal resource for academic curricula, as well as for applications in industry. In addition, Effective FMEAs covers: * The basics of FMEAs and risk assessment * How to apply key factors for effective FMEAs and prevent the most common errors * What is needed to provide excellent FMEA facilitation * Implementing a "best practice" FMEA process Everyone wants to support the accomplishment of safe and trouble-free products and processes while generating happy and loyal customers. This book will show readers how to use FMEA to anticipate and prevent problems, reduce costs, shorten product development times, and achieve safe and highly reliable products and processes.

Building on the success of previous editions, the 4th edition of ‘Introduction to Human Factors and Ergonomics’ provides a comprehensive and up to date introduction to the field. The new edition places the subject matter into a system context using a human-machine model to structure the chapters and a knowledge application model to structure the organisation of material in each chapter. Every chapter covers: Core Concepts, Basic Applications, Tools and Processes, and System Integration issues regardless of topic. Includes over 200 exercises and essays (at least ten per chapter). An Instructor’s Manual, A Guide to Tutorials and Seminars and and over 500 powerpoint slides are available for academic users from the publisher. All chapters contain ‘HFE Workshop’ sections with practical guidance and worked examples. Please see the TOC for more information.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Human Factors and Ergonomics in Systems Design and Project Management. Human Factors and Ergonomics from the Earliest Times to the Present. The Body as a Mechanical System. Anthropometry, Workstation and Facilities Design. Standing and Sitting at Work. Repetitive Tasks. Risk Assessment and Task Design. Design of Manual Handling and Load Carriage Tasks. Work Capacity, Stress, Fatigue and Recovery. Job Demands, Health and Well-being for a Changing Population. Working in hot and Cold Climates. The Visual Environment. Measurement and Design. Hearing, Sound, Noise and Vibration. The Mind at Work: Intention, Action and Interpretation. Displays and Controls. Interactive Devices and the Internet. HFE in Accident Investigation and Safety Management. System Stability and Sustainability. Appendix A. Glossary. References. Index.

Das Ingenieurwissen jetzt auch in Einzelbänden verfügbar. Messtechnik enthält die für Ingenieure und Naturwissenschaftler wesentlichen Grundlagen in kompakter Form zum Nachschlagen bereit.

The UN designated the decade 2005-2015 as the International Decade for Action - Water for Life. The move was initiated at the third World Water Forum in Kyoto, 2003, and it could prove the most significant and effective outcome of the triennial series of World Water For a yet. Its major aims are: (1) to promote efforts to fulfil recent international commitments, especially in the Millennium Goals, (2) to advance towards a truly integrated, int- national approach to sustainable water management, and (3) to put special emphasis on the role of women in these efforts. Even so, it faces tremendous and, as I write, increasing obstacles. The intense season of hurricanes and tropical storms in 2008 illustrated yet again not only the power of nature, but also the vulnerability of the poorer nations, like Haiti and Jamaica. New Orleans and Texas fared better, not because of the efforts of the International Decade for Natural Disasters (1990-2000) to increase preparedness, but more because the USA had learnt from its own experiences in Hurricane Katrina. The biggest obstacle of all is the burgeoning world population. It took off last century, but it is predicted to reach unimaginable heights this century: at least 10 billion by 2050, maybe 20 billion by 2100. Governments are powerless to halt it, even the Chinese. Achieving water security globally against this backdrop will be a Herculean task.

Industrial engineering has expanded from its origins in manufacturing to transportation, health care, logistics, services, and more. A common denominator among all these industries, and one of the biggest challenges facing decision-makers, is the unpredictability of systems. Probability Models in Operations Research provides a comprehensive overview of the probabilistic and stochastic modeling approaches commonly used to capture the randomness in industrial and systems engineering.

Table of Contents

Probability Modeling Fundamentals. Analysis of Random Variables. Analysis of Multiple Random Variables. Bernoulli Processes. Discrete-Time Markov Chains. Poisson Processes. Renewal Processes. Continuous-Time Markov Chains. Queueing Theory.

Betriebsmittel zur UEbertragung und Verteilung elektrischer Energie mussen vor dem Einsatz mit Stossspannungen oder Stossstroemen auf ihre Zuverlassigkeit gepruft werden. Das Buch behandelt die erforderliche Messtechnik: von Generatorschaltungen zur Erzeugung genormter Stossspannungen und Stossstroeme uber Messsysteme und deren Kalibrierung, Verfahren zur Bestimmung von Messunsicherheiten bis zu den mathematischen und experimentellen Grundlagen, um das UEbertragungsverhalten raumlich ausgedehnter Messsysteme fur schnelle transiente Vorgange zu kennzeichnen.

A paperback edition of this successful textbook for final year undergraduate mathematicians and control engineering students, this book contains exercises and many worked examples, with complete solutions and hints making it ideal not only as a class textbook but also for individual study. The intorduction to optimal control begins by considering the problem of minimizing a function of many variables, before moving on to the main subject: the optimal control of systems governed by ordinary differential equations.

This book presents the fundamentals of optimum experimental design theory. Each chapter is a self-contained topic, illustrated with examples drawn from science and engineering. Little previous statistical knowledge is assumed, and the derivation of mathematical results has been avoided. This book should be of interest to everyone concerned with designing efficient experiments in the laboratory or in industry that avoid random error.

Die Produktentwicklung ist der dynamischste und am schwersten zu beherrschende Prozess in Industrieunternehmen. Prozessreifegradmodelle wie CMMI erfordern dazu quantitative Methoden als Werkzeug des Entwicklungsmanagements. Mit der modellgetriebenen Entwicklung steht eine Datenbasis fur eine durchgehende quantitative Analyse zur Verfugung. Modellanalysen erlauben eine prozessbegleitende Qualitatsmessung und die Bestimmung der Produktkomplexitat und des Entwicklungsfortschritts. Das Buch stellt bestehende Methoden des quantitativen Entwicklungsmanagements zur Entscheidungsunterstutzung auf operativer und strategischer Ebene vor. Die Autoren zeigen, wie die modellgetriebene Entwicklung zur Analyse der erreichten Ergebnisse genutzt werden kann, etwa zur Bewertung von Methoden, Werkzeugen sowie zur Prozess- oder Projektanpassung.

Mobile commerce transactions continue to soar, driven largely by the ever-increasing adoption and use of smartphones and tablets. The use of this technology gives consumers the flexibility to shop whenever and wherever they want. Mobile Electronic Commerce: Foundations, Development, and Applications addresses the role of industry, academia, scientists, engineers, professionals, and students in developing innovative new mobile commerce technologies and systems to further improve the consumer experience. It also discusses the impact of mobile commerce on society, economics, culture, organizations, government, industry, and our daily lives.

This book brings together experts from multiple disciplines in industry and academia to stimulate new thinking in the development and application of mobile commerce technology. The book covers important mobile commerce topics, such as critical infrastructure management, mobile security issues, new applications and services, emerging development architectures, mobile business solutions, and future research opportunities.

In addition to its multidisciplinary approach, the book also provides a cross-cultural approach intended to overcome cultural barriers and accelerate mobile commerce advancement in the global economy. Authors and researchers from around the world discuss a broad spectrum of methods, tools, and guidelines for designing mobile commerce systems and services in different cultures.

Table of Contents

Mobile Electronic Commerce Foundations and Theories. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Mobile Electronic Commerce Strategy: A Customer-Orientation Approach. Dominant Issues and Conceptual Approaches in Mobile Business Research from 2005 - 2013. Mobile Electronic Commerce Technologies. Critical Infrastructure Management for Mobile Electronic Commerce: Security and Reliability Issues on Mobile Ad Hoc Network. Security of Wireless Ad-Hoc Network. Mobile Electronic Commerce Systems and the Human Perspective. Mobile Social Networking Service Users’ Trust and Loyalty: A Structural Approach. Comparative Study of In-Store Mobile Commerce Applications and Feature Selection, Targeted at Enhancing the Overall Shopping Experience. Towards a Mobile Website for www.India.gov.in. Security in Mobile Electronic Commerce. Mobile Electronic Commerce Development. Enhancing Electronic Commerce with Hybrid Mobile Application Development Architecture. Using the Apache Cordova Open Source Platform to Develop Native Mobile Applications. MobiCash: Smart Mobile Payment System. Mobile Electronic Commerce Development. Mobile Electronic Commerce Applications and Mobile Business. Mobile Advertising: The Indian Perspective. e-CRM, m-CRM and ICTs Adoption in the E-Tourism and M-Tourism Industries. Security Intelligence for Healthcare Mobile Electronic Commerce. Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and Mobile Phone Interface in a Developing Banking System. Mobile Electronic Commerce and Social, Economic and Environmental Aspects. Mobile Content and Applications Value Networks: Evidence from the Italian Mobile Telecommunications Market. Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning of Mobile Payment Services. Success Factors Influencing Consumers’ Willingness to Purchase Brands Advertised Through the Mobile Phone. Emerging Frontiers. Smart City as a Service Platform: Identification and Validation of City Platform Roles in Mobile Service Provision. Strategi

Handbook and reference for industrial statisticians and system reliability engineers System Reliability Theory: Models, Statistical Methods, and Applications, Third Edition presents an updated and revised look at system reliability theory, modeling, and analytical methods. The new edition is based on feedback to the second edition from numerous students, professors, researchers, and industries around the world. New sections and chapters are added together with new real-world industry examples, and standards and problems are revised and updated. System Reliability Theory covers a broad and deep array of system reliability topics, including: - In depth discussion of failures and failure modes - The main system reliability assessment methods - Common-cause failure modeling - Deterioration modeling - Maintenance modeling and assessment using Python code - Bayesian probability and methods - Life data analysis using R Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in reliability engineering, this book also serves as a reference and resource for practicing statisticians and engineers. Throughout, the book has a practical focus, incorporating industry feedback and real-world industry problems and examples.

Das Inverkehrbringen und der Betrieb von Maschinen erfordern, das Einhalten von (Sicherheits-)Anforderungen zu dokumentieren, in Gefahrdungsbeurteilungen das Risiko zu ermitteln, Schutzmassnahmen abzuleiten und umzusetzen. Trotz des einheitlichen Rechtsrahmens kommt es gerade bei Instandhaltungsarbeiten weiterhin zu schweren Arbeitsunfallen, z.B. durch unkontrolliert austretende Energien wegen deaktivierter Schutzmechanismen. Die Autoren fuhren in den Rechtsrahmen der Maschinen- und Betriebssicherheit ein und leiten daraus die wichtige Absicherung unkontrollierter Energiequellen wahrend der Instandhaltung ab. Mit Lockout-Tagout stellen sie ein anerkanntes Verfahren zur Verbesserung der Betriebssicherheit vor. In der 2. Auflage dieses Buches wurde die systematische Vorgehensweise zur Umsetzung eines Programms zur Gefahrdungsbeherrschung von Betreibern von Maschinen grundlegend erweitert und erganzt. Hierzu kombinieren die Autoren Verfahrensanweisungen, technische Massnahmen und Schulungen mit einer kontinuierlichen UEberwachung der Wirksamkeit der Massnahmen.

Das Buch erlautert die Technologien zum Fugen und zur Oberflachenveredlung von textilen Materialien, fur die Anwendung in der Industrie und der Forschung. Fur wichtige Verfahren wie Nahen, Sticken, Kleben, Beschichten, Schweissen, Schrauben und Nieten, Klettverschluss und gesteckte oder gewebte Nahtverbindungen werden die technologischen Grundlagen, Eigenschaften und Anwendungen beschrieben. Auf der Grundlage der Fuge- und Oberflachentechnologien werden Erlauterungen gegeben zu den Anforderungen, die zur Erzielung gewunschter Produktanforderungen notwendig sind.

Industrielle Anwendungen liegen im Automobilbau, in der Luft- und Raumfahrt, im textilen Bauen, in der Bekleidungsindustrie, bei Schutz- und Sicherheitsanwendungen, aber auch in der Medizin, im Freizeitbereich und in der Papierindustrie kommen die Verfahren zum Einsatz. Das Buch beschreibt auch Methoden zur industriellen Verfahrensbewertung, Innovation und Ideenfindung sowie zur Kostenkalkulation vor Durchfuhrung der Projekte.

Das Buch richtet sich an Experten in der Industrie, aber auch Lernende und Lehrende in der gewerblichen Ausbildung und Hochschulausbildung finden in dem Nachschlagewerk Hinweise zur Beurteilung geeigneter Fuge- und Oberflachenverfahren, zur Herstellung anspruchvoller Produkte bei technischen Textilien, Medizintextilien, Smart Textiles und Bekleidungstextilien sowie fur High-Tech-Anwendungen."

Die Fehlermoeglichkeits- und Einflussanalyse (FMEA) ist ein machtiges Werkzeug des praventiven Qualitats- und Risikomanagements. Mit ihrer Hilfe lasst sich im Vorfeld der Produktentwicklung bzw. der Produktionsplanung systematisch analysieren, welche potenziellen Fehler es gibt, wie gravierend diese Fehler fur den Kunden sind und wie gross die Wahrscheinlichkeit des Auftretens und des Entdeckens der Fehler sind. Daraus lasst sich das Risiko abschatzen. Dies geschieht durch eine Risikoprioritatszahl bzw. in einer Risikomatrix. Fur nicht akzeptable Risiken werden Optimierungsmassnahmen zur Fehlervermeidung und/oder Fehlerentdeckung vorgenommen. Deren Wirksamkeit zur Qualitatsverbesserung wird bewertet. An einem Beispiel mit Softwareunterstutzung wird die Methode praxisnah und direkt umsetzbar vorgestellt. Die Autoren: Dr. rer. nat. Dr. rer. pol. Dr. h.c. Ekbert Hering lehrt und forscht an der Hochschule Aalen. Er ist Verfasser erfolgreicher Fachbucher in renommierten Verlagen. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Schloske forscht in der Abteilung Nachhaltige Produktion und Qualitat am Fraunhofer-Institut fur Produktionstechnik und Automatisierung (IPA), Stuttgart.

Christian Aichele und Marius Schoenberger haben aktuelle wissenschaftliche Methoden und Praxiserfahrungen aus IT-Projekten in unterschiedlichsten Bereichen und Branchen zusammengefasst. Zur erfolgreichen Durchfuhrung von Projekten stellen sie hierbei aktuelle Methoden und Vorgehensweise kumuliert vor und erklaren sie so, dass interessierte Leser ein fundiertes Grundlagenwissen uber die Auswahl und den Einsatz passender Methoden des Projektmanagements erhalten.

Das Buch behandelt die physikalischen und die geratetechnischen Grundlagen des Verfahrens, die Schwachung von Strahlen, die zur Verwendung kommenden Filme und Folien sowie die Geratetechnik. Der Autor stellt spezielle Durchstrahlungstechniken vor und erlautert u.a. die Bildqualitat von Durchstrahlungsaufnahmen. Weitere Themen sind geometrische und spezielle Aufnahmeanordnungen, spezielle Strahlenquellen und -empfanger sowie die Durchstrahlungsprufung von Gussstucken und von Schweissnahten. So erhalt der Werkstoffprufer das erforderliche Rustzeug fur seine praktische Tatigkeit einschliesslich der dabei zu beachtenden wichtigsten Normen und Regelwerke. Der Autor Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karlheinz Schiebold ist ein ausgewiesener Spezialist auf dem Gebiet der zerstoerungsfreien Materialprufung mit langjahriger Erfahrung in Prufpraxis und Ausbildung.